Yes, it has been two weeks since my last post. I wrapped up my Germany trip with a visit to Heidelberg. I returned home, promptly fell asleep for 15 hours, then had a week of vacation. I did... nothing. I slept and watched TV shows and movies and slept and slept some more. Here's the last of the Germany pictures...

The menu shows one woman with a platter of meat and one woman with beers. Here, let's take a closer look...

Our waitress did not look like that.

I got the cheese spatzl:

Mmmmm.

Auf wiedersehen, for now, Germany. I will come back for a proper vacation.

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The flight home was fine. Frankfurt airport is a little stressful. I had three hours from the time I got there to my plane's departure and most of it was spent in a nearly-hysterical panic. I was standing in the wrong line, I didn't use the kiosk to get a boarding pass like I was supposed to, the kiosk wouldn't read my passport, my bag was over the weight limit, etc.

On the plane, I was in an aisle seat in the 2nd to last row, in front of three Swedes in a continual state of alcohol-fueled ruckus and next to a deutsch-bag (a German douche-bag) who purposefully held up his newspaper after I tried looking out the window once. There were some screaming babies, a guy standing in the aisle with his bubble butt in my face, my chair wouldn't recline, I couldn't see the TV, the food was shit, blah blah blah, bitch bitch bitch.

How are the eats in Germany? Good. It has been a little hit-and-miss because I have a "I'll eat anything" mentality, but once the food comes and I try it, I go, "Yeah... If I had known what 'Leberknodel und Saumagen' meant, I probably wouldn't have ordered it."

The first day here, I had a salad with salmon, crab meat and shrimp (in a mayonnaise sauce). It was good- the greens are really, really good over here.

This is when I had the beer in the cool curvey glass.

The next day we walked the gardens and then ate at a brauhaus. I ordered something I didn't know off the menu (expecting a prezel, some kind of wurst and other stuff):

A pretzel sitting on top of a crazy amount of spiral cut radish, with a side of whole grain mustard. And brat soup. Right? Soup? No. A much more well-traveled person than I informed me (after the fact) that it's not a soup- just a way of serving the brats, in it's cooking juices, to keep it warm. But... I ate some of it like a soup. I mean, for crap's sake, it comes with a spoon! What am I supposed to do?

Anyway, I had beers...

This one was tres yum!

This one was still on the yum scale, I guess, but only if I was in the mood for beer that tasted like candy soda. It was very sweet.

We went to a tapas place for supper and I got a plate of fried mackerel (again with the not knowing what I'm ordering)... It was good, though.

The next night we had supper at the hotel, a fixed three couse meal. First the salad (I love you, vegetables)...

Then the main- Hungarian pork with caramelized onions and potatoes. The picture might not look appetizing but this is the best meal I've had so far- the pork practically melted in my mouth...

Tonight for supper, beers:

My coworker's is the darker one on the left, mine is the lighter one on the right. I ordered the Schofferhofer Hefeweizenalkoholfrei and as I started transcribing the name, I realize comes out as Hefeweizen alkohol frei. Yeah. Alkohol Frei.

SON OF A-

I ordered it because the name was so long, which, ha ha, is funny right? Ha haha... Joke's on me.

Okay, Bratwurst and sauerkraut sound good to me, but I didn't know what the other stuff was. Turns out, it's just more meat. Meat in a link, meat in a ball and meat in a patty.

I just google translated it and apparently I had "Bratwurst, a liver dumpling, sow's stomach patty, sauerkraut and potatoes." I ate the brat and potatoes. The patty was good for a few bites but then I was all, "What are these white bits in it?". And the liver ball didn't taste good from the get-go. I'm sorry, Germany, I hope I have not offended you. I love your beer and pretzels.

I went to visit Schwetzingen's Castle and Garden on Sunday and took 200+ pictures. The gardens were so, so, so impressive. We walked around for hours and miles. Every corner revealed something new an impressive. There were old stone buildings, a fine mosque, tons of statues scattered around, swans and ducks and carp, oh my! It was well worth the 4 euro fee.

Saturday

Gutten Tag! I am in Schwetzingen, Germany for the week. The flight was relatively painless, I just didn't get enough sleep during the redeye. We left Boston around 4:30 pm and I landed in Frankfurt at 5:30 am. I waited for my coworker and a shuttle brought us to our hotel. I napped for an hour but forced myself to get up so that I can go to bed early tonight.

I went for a walk through town, checking out the sights. The hotel is very close to Schwetzingen Castle, where many swans and ducks hang around:

The buildings and streets are lovely:

Everyone is out walking or riding bikes:

It was a beautiful day:

The signs are funny to me. They basically say "Exit - do not block!", but I just like that the end with fahrt.

Heh. Fahrt.

This is that button to push for a walk signal:

And the beer here is so good...

I wanted to steal this glass. The bubbles effervessed up in a curvy manner. My co-worker talked me out of it, the party pooper.

People here have be been so nice and polite. The vegetation and temperature is very similar to home (I think we're on close latitudes).

Thursday

I've seen 3 plies where people use variegated colors for 2 of the plies and a solid color for 1. This seems to give the yarn a more cohesive look, I think. I had 4oz of maroon merino sitting on a shelf next to this superwash merino:

I spun 3 bobbins- 2 of the colorful, 1 of the solid maroon. Plied together, they came out as:

I like it (although I generally like all 3-plies I see)...

But I'm beginning to think if I had it to do over again, I might choose a deep brown rather than maroon.